UKIP

[Kelvin]

I appreciate that running a small business is more challenging in many ways than running a large business but it's not stupid worker's rights that off-shore so many jobs it's simply just far cheaper to do certain jobs elsewhere in the World. We've just opened a call centre in Budapest. We could have added to our Milton Keynes facility, or Barcelona, or Cape Town but Budapest was far far cheaper. Our customers want more for less or at the very least the same for less even mid contract. We achieve this by driving down cost through improved efficiencies, better use of technology, and off-shoring to cheaper locales. None of this has been driven by stupid workers rights in the UK - for us at least. Not even close. If you want to talk about stupid worker's rights look to France (I'm involved with our French operation so I'm well versed in the nonsense we have to deal with and how much it costs to employ someone) and Germany, which to some extent is worse than France but there's 100% employment in Germany so it's less of an issue. It's much easier to manage a business in the UK than it is in Germany and France largely because workers here don't have anywhere near the rights they have elsewhere. I could give you a long list of some of the sh*t we need to wade through even for fairly trivial changes that we can simply just do in the UK.

I also don't have a huge problem off-shoring certain manufacturing jobs to China or India either as it benefits the UK in other ways as they want to buy British luxury brands or tourism or it would do if it wasn't for our stupid visa process. Take China, there's a growing middle class in China with money to spend. China is the no.1 'exporter' of tourists in the World with some 100 million of them making foreign trips spending £60 billion - but not so many to the UK as they need a separate visa to get into the UK.

[robin]

I expect the way it works is that smaller companies that are scared to take on women of child bearing age don't do it and most probably get away with active discrimination of this sort if they're smart enough not to actually put it in the job advert.

People less smart than that are self selecting ...

Larger organizations (and employers with the luxury to be slightly less Neanderthal) realize that realistically you're going to employ women, they're going to go on maternity with some probability distribution and it will cost you X% of salary. That's OK, because you already had a huge overhead anyway.

When the time comes to streamline your overheads you move your whole business into another tax/pay/rights regime, if you can. If you cannot, you console yourself with the fact that the competition cannot either.

In due course this movement empowers the workforce of wherever you all moved your businesses to and weakens the one you left behind. When the natives get a bit uppity you move on again; eventually Britain looks like good bet relative to the others and you come back but now paying peanuts to people who once upon a time were in quite good jobs. And so it goes. I think the hippies and anarchists call it Globalization and I haven't heard any convincing plans to mitigate it, other than global harmonization of workers rights/pay/tax, which is unlikely to happen any time soon, or global communism which would simply put an end to all of those things

Pete, I sympathise, but calling them Fascists is not a good idea. Sure a few of them come out with things that were last heard of when the Nazis were around, but until they take over the police (or form their own militia) and start to disappear dissidents (immigrants?) you cannot call them Fascists.

The closest thing I can find to a manifesto on their web site ("Euro Manifesto Launch.pdf") has the following "policies". I am leaving out stuff that is a statement of a perceived problem without specific policies to address it.

Leave the EU at any cost. Assume that people will trade with us anyway. On the plus side we don't pay our subs any more.

Stop immigration other than people we like.

Scrap green subsidy on energy - estimated to save £500/household - thus reduce fuel poverty.

Lighter regulation for small business - apparently this is something to do with leaving EU - perhaps it's the maternity pay issue above - perhaps something else?

No votes for prisoners [subtext, extradite more terrorists]

Keep foreigners out of UK waters so we can fish them [no explanation of just how this works - presumably we'll claim everything that's 200k out except for where that overlaps with our ex-euro pal's waters]

Local Homes for Local Families - even if you have sneaked in, we'll kick you out of your house to put in somebody who was born here in.

NHS not to cover foreigners. Foreigners must have health insurance. How will the NHS know whether or not you are foreign? Not discussed.

Trade Globally. Certain trade agreements will survive us leaving the EU (subtext, some won't). Negotiate new trade deals outside of the EU.

Reduce fuel duty.

Their local election manifesto is largely the same, except for some council bashing and this gem:

An Open Door To Crime
28,000 Romanians are held for crimes in London. Romanians
come second on the list of foreign nationals arrested by
police for serious crimes.
This includes 142 rapes, 10 murders, 666 sex crimes, 303
robberies, 1370 burglaries, 2902 acts of violence

What are the other 22,607 being held for?

Robin

[pete]

Pete, I sympathise, but calling them Fascists is not a good idea. Sure a few of them come out with things that were last heard of when the Nazis were around, but until they take over the police (or form their own militia) and start to disappear dissidents (immigrants?) you cannot call them Fascists.


Robin

I can call them fascists if I want to, who are you to tell me I can't!!! (insert obvious punchline here).

OK My rhetoric may have become slightly overblown (even for me) but I didn;'t call them Nazis, and my dictionary talks of fascists as hard right and intolerant. Which you've got to admit is pretty close...

[Scuffers]

I appreciate that running a small business is more challenging in many ways than running a large business but it's not stupid worker's rights that off-shore so many jobs it's simply just far cheaper to do certain jobs elsewhere in the World. We've just opened a call centre in Budapest. We could have added to our Milton Keynes facility, or Barcelona, or Cape Town but Budapest was far far cheaper. Our customers want more for less or at the very least the same for less even mid contract. We achieve this by driving down cost through improved efficiencies, better use of technology, and off-shoring to cheaper locales. None of this has been driven by stupid workers rights in the UK - for us at least. Not even close. If you want to talk about stupid worker's rights look to France (I'm involved with our French operation so I'm well versed in the nonsense we have to deal with and how much it costs to employ someone) and Germany, which to some extent is worse than France but there's 100% employment in Germany so it's less of an issue. It's much easier to manage a business in the UK than it is in Germany and France largely because workers here don't have anywhere near the rights they have elsewhere. I could give you a long list of some of the sh*t we need to wade through even for fairly trivial changes that we can simply just do in the UK.

I also don't have a huge problem off-shoring certain manufacturing jobs to China or India either as it benefits the UK in other ways as they want to buy British luxury brands or tourism or it would do if it wasn't for our stupid visa process. Take China, there's a growing middle class in China with money to spend. China is the no.1 'exporter' of tourists in the World with some 100 million of them making foreign trips spending £60 billion - but not so many to the UK as they need a separate visa to get into the UK.

Hang on a minute...

So you claiming that current employment law has zero bearing on the costs to employ somebody?

Yes, right - not!

[tut]

Good discussion but largely irrelevant when it comes to the crunch.

Cons or Lab will be running the Country for the foreseeable future, would anybody spot the difference? If it has to be a coalition then the junior party will do as they are told as was proven by the Lib Dems on student fees.

tut

ps:- bookies odds, 11/5, 11/4.

[Kelvin]

Hang on a minute...

So you claiming that current employment law has zero bearing on the costs to employ somebody?

Yes, right - not!

Hang on a minute...

No. I didn't use any of those words.

Of course current employment law adds to the cost of employing someone. I didn't claim otherwise. However, it's not stupid worker's rights that drive off shoring. In our case it's pressure from our customers to reduce costs and it's simply far cheaper to set it up in Budapest. The building lease is a fraction of what we pay in the UK and far shorter too. The salaries are about half albeit above average for the area. Those are the two biggest costs. If both were the same as the UK we would have extended one of our existing call centres.

My gf works in the clothing industry. Her company produces the care labels that get stitched into clothes which, as it turns out, is quite a complex thing to do. They are all manufactured in Bangladesh, China, and Turkey largely because it's cheap and also because the garments are made here too so logistically it makes sense. She's been to all three countries to help setup the factories. Increasingly, more of the work is moving to Bangladesh from China and the reason is largely to do with the increased salary costs for Chinese factory workers. Their average (they have more than one factory and pay rates differ by region) monthly minimum wage in China is around $300 in Bangladesh it's $45. All her customers are in the UK and are high street names and are very cost focused given the price 'war' that's starting among the big retailers.

Explain what stupid worker's rights you'd change that would drive the production cost down to a low enough level that all these off shored jobs could be moved back to the UK?

[robin]

Tut,

There is a possibility that the next government will be a coalition. If the liberals won't play (due to have no seats) the Conservatives will have to decide whether to form a coalition with UKIP or whether to step back and allow some other form of government to emerge (national unity sort of thing).

The Conservatives have ruled out a coalition with UKIP, but that will mean nothing when it's the only chance they have of clinging on to power.

Cheers,
Robin

[woody]

Are you aware just how many jobs in this country have been off-shored because of ever more stupid workers rights?

Are you? What data do you have, how many jobs in which sectors over what time?

What workers rights have caused this, can't see any mention of anything specific? You seem very certain, would be good to see what numbers behind that are.

[Kelvin]

My prediction is that Labour will win and form a minority Government.

What happens after that is anyone's guess as the UK's track record with minority Governments isn't too great. They can work of course as the Danes regularly return minority Governments.

[robin]

may have become slightly overblown (even for me) but I didn;'t call them Nazis, and my dictionary talks of fascists as hard right and intolerant. Which you've got to admit is pretty close...

Fascists are not always right wing, just nationalist and violent - they often have policies that you would equate with socialism.

To me it's the violence used to intimidate political opponents that makes the difference between a fascist and a nationalist. UKIP is clearly a nationalist party pursuing their political aims through the normal democratic process and we should encourage anybody with, err, "novel policies" to do the same thing as that's how it's supposed to work.

Cheers,
Robin

[robin]

My prediction is that Labour will win and form a minority Government.

What happens after that is anyone's guess as the UK's track record with minority Governments isn't too great. They can work of course as the Danes regularly return minority Governments.

Until independence ... then labour lose the Scottish MPs!

[Kelvin]

My prediction is that Labour will win and form a minority Government.

What happens after that is anyone's guess as the UK's track record with minority Governments isn't too great. They can work of course as the Danes regularly return minority Governments.

Until independence ... then labour lose the Scottish MPs!

As I understand it, because it will take 18 months or so to negotiate Scotland's exit from the UK, Scottish voters will still vote in the 2015 GE. However, once Scotland has left the UK any Scottish MPs will have to stand down from Westminster. Not sure how all that will work e.g while they are sitting in Westminster negotiating Scotland's exit will they get a say in Westminster matters? There would be an uproar if that was the case.

Only one election result since 1979 would have changed had Scotland been independent (and that that was the last one) That said, Labour will find future GEs much harder to win outright should you lot vote Yes. I think future Westminster Governments will either be coalitions or minorities if Scotland votes yes.

[pete]

may have become slightly overblown (even for me) but I didn;'t call them Nazis, and my dictionary talks of fascists as hard right and intolerant. Which you've got to admit is pretty close...

Fascists are not always right wing, just nationalist and violent - they often have policies that you would equate with socialism.

To me it's the violence used to intimidate political opponents that makes the difference between a fascist and a nationalist. UKIP is clearly a nationalist party pursuing their political aims through the normal democratic process and we should encourage anybody with, err, "novel policies" to do the same thing as that's how it's supposed to work.

Cheers,
Robin

In the traditional description of politics the far right are fascists, the far left communists so I think it is a phrase that very much could be used for some members of UKIP, probably all of BNP and occasionally is levelled at some extreme Tories.

The only place where this becomes less true is on the subject of authoritarian vs libertarianism. Fascists are traditionally authoritarian yet the UKIPs have some members who claim to libertarians. It's a strange contradiction that the Tea Party also share.

They have very few actual policies and Rossco's summation is probably pretty accurate (although I agree less with the comparison to the SNP which is a far more mature party) but those that they do have include less tax (libertarian) smaller govt (libertarian) larger police (authoritarian) and a larger military (authoritarian).

They've also attracted a group of nutters and have little or no central message so we hear such nonsense as the anti women stuff (libertarian) and the anti gay stuff (authoritarian).

[pete]

Scuffers,

OK. You clearly think I am misunderstanding you so let's start again.

I interpreted your sentence

I guess its better to have rights and be unemployed?

as being ironic. ie you didn't actually mean it, but what you meant was that more workers rights led to less employment. As this was said in the context of maternity leave I inferred that you meant maternity leave led to unemployment specifically and a less competitive economy generally.

This inference was compounded by the preceding sentence which said:

Are you aware just how many jobs in this country have been off-shored because of ever more stupid workers rights?

Which I took not to be ironic, but to be a theory of yours that workers' rights had caused jobs to go overseas. This was further compounded by the separate posts you had made in response to Kelvin's posts.
Once again because this was posted in response to a comment about maternity leave I took it to mean that you believe that requiring companies to pay maternity leave was causing jobs to go overseas.

The only conclusion I could reach was that you would prefer there to be fewer workers' right so I asked if you would prefer us to have the employment laws of third world countries supported by your sentence -

(and you wonder why our industry has taken a massive beating over the last few decades compared to the so-called third world?)

If you are suggesting, which I think I have demonstrated that you are, that employment laws in this country are causing jobs to go overseas to countries with fewer laws, then the only logical conclusion to draw is that the only way to get these jobs back, something which from your tone I presume you consider is desirable, is to lower our employment protection until it is below theirs'.

So what standard would you have our employment laws set at?

[PartTimer]

In the traditional description of politics the far right are fascists, the far left communists so I think it is a phrase that very much could be used for some members of UKIP, probably all of BNP and occasionally is levelled at some extreme Tories.

The only place where this becomes less true is on the subject of authoritarian vs libertarianism. Fascists are traditionally authoritarian yet the UKIPs have some members who claim to libertarians. It's a strange contradiction that the Tea Party also share.

They have very few actual policies and Rossco's summation is probably pretty accurate (although I agree less with the comparison to the SNP which is a far more mature party) but those that they do have include less tax (libertarian) smaller govt (libertarian) larger police (authoritarian) and a larger military (authoritarian).

They've also attracted a group of nutters and have little or no central message so we hear such nonsense as the anti women stuff (libertarian) and the anti gay stuff (authoritarian).

I find this a very helpful way of disaggregating left vs right and authoritarianism vs libertarianism

http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010